Hacker News Reader

Comment by gshulegaard | Hacker News Reader

Article you may be interested in from 2013: http://www.economist.com/news/international/21588385-giving-...

Basically UCT (Unconditional Cash Transfers) work well when lack of capital is the primary problem.

But often times the cycle of poverty is self-reinforcing because of deeper issues and UCTs don't fix those (such as undervaluing education). Instead CCT (Conditional Cash Transfers) can often be more corrective to enact lasting change to poverty cycles.

Ultimately, I think some sort of UCT and CCT combination would be the best and least overhead form of welfare. But that is just IMO.

View on HN

Bolsa Familia[1] in Brazil was a pretty succesful program. Poor families get money as long as the children go to school and get vaccinated. Money is distributed to the female head of the household by a debit card network which helps to reduce corruption and theft.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolsa_Fam%C3%ADlia

Makes sense. I like the UCT in principle, but I can't argue with the evidence that CCT does have positive effects.

Of course, CCTs may eventually have the same problem as traditional welfare policies: self-perpetuating bureaucracies, contradictory incentives, resource misallocation, etc, etc.

I think the key difference is that UCTs and CCTs aren't (or at least don't have to be) doled out to "qualified" persons. They can just be given. I like UBI (Universal Basic Income) as it is a scaling UCT that disappears once you earn over a certain amount. So the traditional inefficiencies are no longer a concern.

CCTs could be issued in a universal sense as well, with an income threshold of some sort. But admittedly they are more complicated than UBI. But not necessarily as convoluted as current systems.

New Incentives does conditional cash transfers (CCTs) in West Africa. CCTs have a lot of research behind them as the parent comment noted.

GD's one-time, large transfers help achieve concrete benefits. Super excited to see the basic income experiment in East Africa evolve.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com